To Touch Something Real
by Phantahelix
Summary: "You love me. Real or not real?" The night from Peeta's perspective, and beyond. The Boy with the Bread may not have recovered from hi-jacking as well as Katniss thinks.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: It isn't mine.

In honor of the upcoming HG movie.

Listen to: More Than Life by Whitley, which reminds me of Peeta every time. Happy reading.

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><p>Dinner was quiet that evening, with a bit of bread from me and a bit of squirrel from her, with no Haymitch around to distract us from our thoughts, and we didn't know what to do to distract each other. My house in the Victor's Village glowed like a pearl in the setting sun, but just inside, in the kitchen, the table was an open wound. We dared not speak or move too much for fear we might infect it.<p>

_Crunch_. Good bread crunches like that, except normally there's good conversation to go with the crunch. There is laughter and maybe music. This crunch almost echoed in the hollowness of the house, in the hollowness of ourselves.

I glanced up at Katniss to see she was chewing at her plate, with her hands formed into loose fists on the tabletop, her shoulders slumped, braid flipped tiredly over he left shoulder. She'd brought a handful of wildflowers from the woods and tossed them in the centerpiece bowl. Baby's breath, Ironweed, Black Eyed Susan. The fresh colors rested over the withered stems from weeks before.

Is the bread good? How was your day? Did anything wonderful happen on your hunt? Why won't you look at me? All questions I wanted to ask. Instead, I sliced away at some squirrel, skewered it on my fork, brought it to my mouth- this was how I functioned. One tiny step at a time. Slice, skewer, lift, bite. _Chew_ was the next step, but I just let the meat sit on my tongue and sour.

_Crunch_. She must have liked the bread, to take a second bite. This was how I measured passion. A second bite means acceptance.

The doctors said we could heal each other, but we just wallowed beside each other in our own separate versions of hell. _They said we could heal._ Around the edges my sight grew shiny, and I gripped the edge of the table, waiting for the jackers to come. Come along, then. Take me. Take me away. Take Peeta away.

"I had a nightmare last night," Katniss interrupted. How rude of her. Couldn't she see I was busy?

I couldn't reply with the squirrel still souring on the roof of my mouth, but I nodded, gesturing for her to continue, and began to chew.

"Prim had a wolf muttation, like from the cornucopia. It had her eyes." She didn't go into any more detail, and I didn't want her to. Poor little Primrose. I wanted to remember her pure, beyond the Capitol now.

Chew. Swallow. Comfort. "She's safe now. No one can hurt her. No one can touch her."

Katniss pushed her plate away. "It was all for her, everything. The stupid clothes, the killing, the rebellion, the filming. And she died anyway. Peeta…we should have behaved, we should have stayed in the clock arena and let them kill us like they wanted."

I remained silent long enough for her words to sink into her. Then I said, "Don't you dare. Don't you dare belittle what she sacrificed. What we all sacrificed." Shoving my own plate away, I folded my hands over hers and glared until she looked me in the eyes. "This. Is. Better." I willed her to see how much better off we all were. I willed myself to see.

With a clenching jaw she jerked her hands away and folded them into her armpits. "I'm not hungry anymore," she said.

"I've lost my appetite as well," I said without missing a beat.

Katniss turned away to watch the last ripples of the sun settle behind the horizon. Soft clouds were rolling in with a promise of one of those long, soft, soaking rains that wipes the smudges from the air. I studied her in profile for the millionth time in my sorry existence, and I wanted so much to kiss her.

So I did. I stood up and limped around the table and stole her taste for myself. "I'm tired," I said. "Stay over here tonight and I'll keep the mutts away."

"Promise?"

"As long as you do the same for me."

The night began like any other. I faced the wall, she the window, with the blankets tucked up to our chins to ward off the memories. We didn't speak, but eventually her hand found mine, and I rolled over to wrap my arm around her soft stomach. The rain started. Patters on the roof. We dozed. My dreams soaked in the smell of her.

Then came the thunder, bringing with it a flashback of explosions and heat in the dense palm trees, and the descending hovercrafts. The lies they told me, the syringes, those empty white white walls. Rose petals and videos and audio recordings. _She hates you, Peeta. She poisoned you in the arena. She used you to live. She never put those berries in her mouth. She doesn't love you. She never loved you, Peeta._

I came back with her hand on my forehead.

"You're all sweaty."

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

Her clammy palms pressed against my fevered eyelids, but that wasn't enough for me. I nuzzled my lips to her own, and with persistent little flutters encouraged her to let me in. Her tongue was glazed with the sweetness of sleep, like the nectar of life I dined upon her, and she upon me. Moist breath upon my cheek.

"It's hot." The blankets slumped to the floor. My whole body was overheating, and I sought desperately for relief by running my fiery palms along her soft, cool belly. Up, up along the rib cage. Higher. Sometimes she let me. That night she did. And I worshipped her with my hands as I always imagined I might back in school.

It went on like that, with our lips on each others' necks, for many rolls of thunder.

"Peeta."

"Katniss?"

We sized each other up, eyes reflecting the lighting that threaded down every once in a while, and it seemed she decided something. She unpeeled me from my shirt. I returned the favor. Not a word was spoken beyond that point, but everything was said. She traced the track marks from the syringes, kissed them. I silently apologized to her that she had t look at these. The thick raised lacerations around both wrists from the hand-cuffs in the Capitol. These I did not apologize for, because they kept me present and sharp during the war. Sometimes only pain could do that.

Skin grafts and burns, missing pieces. We were patchwork people. We worked steadily, tirelessly, to learn each other, until we had tasted each and every one of our partner's scars. Tasted the salt from each others' skins. And that was it. I pressed my torso against hers, the touch like feathers in the wind, and I showed her in no uncertain terms that I wanted everything. And she nodded.

We clamored from our cocoons, and there, completely exposed to the room and to each other, and so quietly and so angrily we took everything we wanted from each other. Arched together, coiled, I pinned her hands like a butterfly, and her body was safety for me, warmth and protection. Ecstasy. Our eyes never left each other, not through any of it, and with each second I read more about her.

Lovemaking was an understated and unbalanced thing. People always thought about it as a fiery pursuit, but I couldn't see how, when it felt so earthy. Like the separate plates of solid ground faulting and colliding and pulling apart, sinking deep into the viscous center. And oh, so, slowly,

we drowned in each other.

When I collapsed away from her, the quiet remained. Heavier now, cooling. But I could feel myself, the me inside of this raw body, floating up, rising like the steam from my skin. My muscles were light and airy, my bones hollow. And in this state I transcended the shining film that so often curled around the edges of my consciousness. And I saw.

Katniss, hands blooming with dandelion suns, palms staining yellow and green. Katniss, smoothing little Primrose's hair before the reaping. This was true, this was right, this was what I wanted.

They were all wrong. She wasn't the Mockingjay. Not the Girl on Fire. Not to me no, she was neither flight nor fire.

She was water: life-giving yet dangerous, patient and powerful, pure as well as deep.

She was what I needed to survive. To heal. To grow.

Katniss shifted to face the window, and I curled around her, moving to fit her shape. Our heartbeats played tag along the expanses of our overlapping skin, diving between each other.

ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-ba-boom-boom

I followed her eyes to the undulating sky through the windowpane. We traded air. We did not speak. I laid my head against hers. Pulsing artery to pulsing artery, brain to brain, I felt drunk of her.

I could sense the shine coming back, and with it that hallucinogenic whirl of non-reality. Quick. I needed proof.

"You love me. Real or not real?"

The answer was.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: The drabbles continue! After writing the first bit I realized Peeta had more to say. So here it is. Updates will occur whenever I feel inspired. Don't expect too much plot, just cuteness and a bit of angst. Read and enjoy.

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><p>The morning came filled with promises, the air clean and clear from the previous night's rainfall, the sheets tangled around us and smelling like lust. Maybe it was like this with every pair of lovers, but I could have sworn we woke up at the exact same moment, like our minds were set on the same frequency and we couldn't survive a second of consciousness alone.<p>

Her hair fell in her face so I could only see half of her left eye, but the way she looked at me made me feel like I could float up through the ceiling. I was invincible.

"Good morning," I half-whispered, reaching out to brush the hair from her face. In our sleep, we'd moved so the we were facing each other, toes almost touching, heads close together, our bodies forming a nearly symmetrical shape.

"Good morning." She took my hand and kissed the palm.

What do you do, after you wake up next to someone you made love to the night before? What do you say? When you put on your clothes, are you the same person that took them off? So many questions, all of which could be answered later.

I rustled my way through the sheets to her side and kissed her long and deep, until I memorized the tips of her teeth, and during that process we gravitated back together. Ever so slowly, as if moving through syrup, my hips shifted into the embrace of her own. Katniss was tender from the night before- I could tell by the way she moved, but she didn't say anything and I wasn't going to baby her.

Our lips trembled, half-open against each other, as we traveled once again down this barely-familiar path. This second time was less about the action and more about the need. The need to affirm to ourselves that this was how we lived now. That it had actually happened. I appreciated different aspects of it from the first time, like the way her breath came in cycles, the way our bodies spoke to each other in the silence, how half the pleasure of being inside of her was the sensation of absolute safety. I could already tell that I liked it when she let go before I did, all those tight muscles squeezing and shivering around me like a thousand silk threads being pulled taut.

When it happened, her nails dug into my shoulders and then tore down my back, leaving definite welts, but the slight pain only intensified the satisfaction by making it more real. Only once she finished trembling did I allow myself to follow her.

After, I fell back onto my pillow, and Katniss rested her head on my shoulder. Chest to chest. Her heartbeat reverberated through my bones.

"I don't want to get up," she confessed. And I didn't either.

So we drowsed through half the morning until the sound of her stomach rumbling made us both break into laughter.

"Hungry?" I asked through a smile.

"Starving."

"I'll uh…I'll go throw something together, what do you think?"

With her consent I climbed out of bed and threw on a bathrobe, too lazy to pick up my things from the floor. The whole time, she watched me, which was both thrilling and terrifying. What do you do? What do you do after this giant step? I thought about all the people in the world who'd done exactly what we had, and I wondered how they could walk around after, going about their lives as if everything was perfectly normal.

The "something" I'd promised turned out to be cinnamon rolls from the freezer. I didn't have the will or the steady hand to bake. I was still trying to sort out what this new development meant in my life when Katniss descended, wearing her clothes from last night. It was my house, and she didn't have anything else to put on, not a single extra set of clothes waiting for her. I felt like I'd done her some injustice.

"Mmmm," she rounded the counter to stand behind me, and appraised our breakfast. "Smells delicious."

I didn't say anything, still preoccupied with the clothes conundrum. I offered her a roll and sat down at the kitchen table with my own. With both our stomachs growling, we didn't wait for the rolls to cool to ice them. We ate them hot.

Conversation was light, flitting around the fact that I was prettymuch naked and she was wearing the previous day's clothes. I wanted to talk about it, find out exactly what it meant for her and for us, and what her plans were now. She said she loved me- finally, she said it. After months of swirling around in a whirlpool of confused thoughts she had given me something concrete to latch onto, something that I could work with as I rebuilt my reality, and so now…we weren't going to talk about it? Cool.

Maybe I could talk to Dr. Aurelius about it? No, that would be awful. How could I possibly initiate that conversation? What would I say?

Well I knew what I would say at that moment, sitting over a half-eaten roll with a whole table between Katniss and myself.

I would say that I hated hiding from her- that this wasn't right. We weren't mean to be there, wrapped up in fabric. We looked silly. We were better when we were open, connected at the hip, moving and breathing as one being. I wanted more of her. I tore away a chunk of cinnamon roll with my teeth and chewed, thinking of her the whole time, staring at her. She kept her eyes averted but it did nothing to banish the clarity between us. Because suddenly we were so aware of each other- the scent and feel and taste. This cinnamon roll was cardboard compared to her.

"So," Katniss said in the stillness that had abruptly fallen over us. "What are your plans for today?"

The answer came automatically. "I'll be going down to the bakery sometime, to oversee construction, that kind of thing." People were finally returning to the district in large volumes, and the shops needed rebuilt. With encouragement from Katniss, I signed up for a rebuilding plot for the bakery, not in the same spot it had once stood, but in an even better location, closer to the square. My father would have been proud. My mother would have been upset that I didn't think the old spot was good enough. Anyway, the men and women working on it liked me to be around so I could help them work through logistical problems and bake them sweet things for lunch. One of the many perks of working on construction for the Mellark Bakery.

"I'm going hunting pretty soon," Katniss said, looking over her shoulder at the wall clock, "but I thought you'd like to have a late lunch with me. Maybe at the bakery? I could bring some berries from the woods to go with the bread."

Berries. I owed my life to berries. Everything I loved in the world came to me from a handful of berries. "Sure, that sounds wonderful. I'd love to."

"Great. Good."

More silence. This one almost uncomfortable. And then the idea hit me: the solution to all these new problems. The clothes, the uncertainty. A test for this tenuous link we'd created in the late hours of last night.

Commitment.

"Um. Katniss, I was thinking."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I was wondering maybe- I think we should…move in together." I winced immediately after I said it, knowing she wouldn't be able to accept. There were so many reasons why it was a bad idea. We were both still in rough shape, it would be irresponsible, what would people think. And there was still the chance I could come at her with a knife on one of my bad nights. I still had those sometimes. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more horror I felt that she had trusted me enough to-

Stop it. I gripped the edge of my chair and sucked in healing breath. I was working myself up into a flashback. Dr. Aurelius warned me about that. Just breathe, in, out. There. Now what was Katniss saying?

I clawed my way back to the present to see her shrug and say, "Sure."

Sure? Was she saying yes? She was. Huh. Imagine that. Quick. Say something Peeta.

"Really?" I managed.

"I think it's a good idea." She didn't elaborate, but something in the way she finished off her roll clued me in to the fact that she'd probably thought about moving in together before I ever mentioned it.

Now what do you say, Peeta? "Great? Great. This is…great."

"Great," she smirked, poking fun at my disbelief. And just like that, we were normal again. We were two people, willing to die for one another, best friends-and we also happened to be lovers. Simple as that.

But nothing was truly simple. By the time I made it to the bakery I convinced myself that the whole thing with Katniss was a mistake or a dream, or worse- a delusion I was living while I rotted in a cell deep underneath the Capital. Not even the sight of revived town square soothed my unease. My mind lingered on that fateful reaping day two years ago, instead of reveling in the fresh skyline and the sounds of construction. Color sapped from every surface. The Capital insignias on every surface. The silence of the downtrodden. The sound of my own name being called over the speakers in Effie's Capital accent. This one moment spiraled into a series of events, dragging me inexplicably down a path of love, rejection, political intrigue, rebellion, torture, freedom, imprisonment and finally back to the start. This same square two years later.

And what did that make me? What on earth was the point?

This one moment, this one slip of paper out of thousands. The dreaded phrase. And our male tribute is…

"Peeta Mellark."

The present was a slap in the face, and suddenly I was standing just outside the bakery with a dark-haired woman snapping fingers in front of my eyes. Color rushed back like blood into the sky and the grass.

"Peeta Mellark, what are you doing standing out here all alone?"

That was Nero, a woman from District Two who came to live in Twelve after the revolution. Having worked in masonry her entire life, she was something of an expert when it came to building. She was in charge of several rebuilding projects around the square, but she always came to the bakery around lunch time.

"You're in pretty late today, buddy. What held you up?"

I already had an excuse ready, not that it was anyone's business when I came in. But I'd come to consider Nero and her contractors my friends, just as they did for me. I moved into the finished part of the bakery, collecting the ingredients for some cheese buns while I ran through my spiel "My doctor from the Capital called early this morning. Said he wanted to check up on me. We got to talking and then it was almost noon. You know how these things are." I chose a lump of dough readymade from the evening before, and began to knead. Could she see through me? She could. She could see the change in me, like I was emanating Katniss through my skin.

"I do," Nero said as she studied blueprints for the eastern side of the bakery, which still needed to be walled in and plastered. Her lips pulled into a curious frown. "You know," she said, "you're exactly the type of person I always I imagined you would be when I saw you in the games and interviews. You're _actually_ that personable." Her nose wrinkled. "It's disconcerting."

"I'm sorry I try to get along with people," I said, feigning insult. "Maybe I should stop making lunch for you guys."

"That's not what I meant. What I meant was that, whatever those bastards in the Capital did to you, you're still good. And I hope your doctor tells you that."

I stopped in the middle of kneading and stared at my clinging white handprint in the dough. It was strange, those words coming from Nero, who'd never made any advance into a personal relationship before, but they were welcome. In fact, they were just what I needed.

"Thank you, Nero," I said, but I was talking to an empty room. Nero was back to giving orders on the others side of the opaque plastic sheet separating the complete from the unfinished. For the longest time I watched as my handprint slowly faded out from the dough. Then, because it felt like the right thing to do, I followed through with an exercise Katniss introduced to me when I felt overwhelmed: stacking up all the small truths of myself until they became a larger truth.

"My name is Peeta Mellark," I said to myself. "I am eighteen years old. I live in District Twelve. The Capital hi-jacked me, but I'm getting better. I love Katniss Everdeen, and now I know that she loves me. She said we're going to move in together. I know as long as she's with me, I know who I am."

And that was all that I needed. Then I set back to working the dough into a pliant form, kneading out all the bad thoughts within myself as I did so. By the time I slid the cheese buns into the only functional oven, I felt confidence. Baking, like hunting for Katniss, served as a catharsis.

The construction crew crowded around the scrubbed wood countertop where I laid out their bread to cool, and I found it easy to stand back and let their conversation wash over me without taking any part. They seemed to know I needed my space, and again I began to worry that it was written on my face what we'd done. I couldn't understand why I felt so defensive, like I was keeping some terrible secret.

Perhaps it was because everything else about our relationship was so public. I confessed my love for her on live television. Our first kiss? Live television. I proposed to her in front of an audience, and the people of the Capital chose what we were going to wear to a sham wedding, and even that was interrupted in the end. All of it was so out of our hands. So when we finally trusted each other enough to manifest that trust physically through sex, I wanted it to be ours, and just ours. I wanted to protect this small space of our own that lay beyond the expectations and opinions of others. In a way, it was like we were back in the cave from the first games. Sheltered. But this time, nothing could make me budge, because there were no more enemies. Not anymore.

I lost myself in these thoughts and in the baking for the next hours. Enough customers came by the unfinished bakery to ease any doubts I had about financial success. A lot of people missed the bread from home, apparently. And they wanted to see what became of the little boy who used to hide behind the counter while his daddy made a sale. Familiarity was good.

Around three 'o' clock Katniss ducked under the plastic sheeting and greeted me with a chaste kiss. She had the promised berries, as well as a new set of clothes and clean hair from a shower.

She'd washed me off, something I hadn't even considered doing to her.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi. Ready to eat?"

Her silver Seam eyes appraised me- my mussed hair, the pink scratch marks that she left on my neck- and she smiled. "I'm starving."

We settled in our usual spot, under a tree in the back lot of the bakery, where we had a clear view of the sky, but not the square, and we couldn't easily be seen by unwanted eyes.

Katniss bit into a cheese bun and leaned back against the rough bark of the tree. As usual, she didn't say much, but the speed with which she wolfed down first one, and then another bun was thanks enough.

I found myself daydreaming about her over my own lunch, getting lost in the small details of her, like the curve of her wrist and the ever-present crease between her brows. The next time we were alone together, I promised myself that I would kiss that worry line away. Or maybe I would lean over and do it right then. This spot was pretty secluded. No one was watching. Maybe…

"How was the hunt?" I asked to avoid following that particular line of thought to its conclusion.

"Uneventful."

Well, that wasn't very helpful. "Hmm."

"But after I got back, something interesting did happen."

I popped the penultimate berry into my mouth, leaving the last for her if she wanted it. "Yeah?"

"I got a letter." She glanced briefly at her hands before zeroing in on me. "It was from Gale."

Gale Hawthorne: the boy with the snares, the boy who Katniss had accused of murdering poor little Primrose. Heroic effort saved me from choking on my own saliva, and I managed to ask, with very little tremor in my voice. "What did it say?"

"I didn't open it. I thought we could read it together, once I moved in with you."

"My house, is that where we decided?"

"I still can't stand to go into my own bedroom. I sleep in the living room, you know. Your house is best. I'll start packing the stuff I want tonight."

Again, it struck me how easily and surely she made decisions. Without me. She was so strong, strong enough for both of us I guessed. Too strong. "Do you want help?"

"No," she moved to get up and leave, so I stood as well. "I'd like to do it myself. Have some alone time tonight."

She couldn't have made it any clearer. I wouldn't be kissing away that worry line tonight. That didn't bother me so much as this "alone time" she spoke of. What did she call her time in the woods?

"Thanks for the lunch," she smiled. "I've got a call with Dr. Aurelius soon, then I'm helping Alexi sort through my mom's old healing equipment. I'll probably have dinner with her. But I'll see you around." And then she gave me a kiss that lingered just long enough to make me want to press her up against our tree and keep her there.

But then she left, fast as if the wind blew her away. The berry I'd saved for her remained, a bright red blot on a napkin, the only thing left of our lunch. Our small space of time together.

_I'll see you around._

The ring of the courtesy bell at the front desk of the bakery tugged me back to my world. Another customer. Another mound of dough.


End file.
